Before the Dawn

On Wednesday 3rd September a 5 month (and 35 Year) wait was over as I got to see one of my all time favourite musicians, Kate Bush.
I'd bought the tickets way back in March on the day they went on sale and had been counting the days since.
As usual, things never go smoothly for us and Miriam was admitted into hospital 10 days before the concert with another UT infection. She was discharged the day before we were due to go to London, phew !
We left Taunton station around 1.30pm and arrived at Paddington at 3.45pm taking a taxi straight to the Apollo to collect our tickets. I must admit to being quite emotional when I finally had them in my hands !

 We then walked around the corner to our hotel for the night to drop our bags off before heading to the William Morris, a Wetherspoon's pub for a pre-gig drink. We had been advised to be back at the venue by 6.10pm as the doors opened at 6.15 and wheelchairs are admitted first.

Soon we were inside and had around an 1.1/2 hours wait, nothing when you've already waited half a lifetime !
When 7.45pm came, so did Kate, leading a procession of her backing singers, including son Bertie, and launching straight into Lily, from The Red Shoes album. This, and nearly all subsequent songs got a standing ovation. Next up was a storming version of Hounds of Love with was received with rapturous applause. Kate's voice has matured over the years and now has a rich, mellow timbre, probably another reason why she wasn't going to perform any material from her first four 'high pitched vocal' albums. The other numbers in this first set were Joanni, Top of the City, Running up that Hill and King of the Mountain.
It was now that problems set in, the next part of the gig was going to be 'The Ninth Wave' which makes up the second side of the Hounds of Love album and is a narrative piece written to be played as a whole but it just started with a film of an Astronomer calling the coast guard to report a missing ship when it stopped and we were told there were technical difficulties and we would have first a 10 minute, then a thirty minute break.
This soon passed and we were back to the show starting with a canon fire of confetti out into the audience of tissue paper with an excerpt of Tennyson's poem, 'The coming of Arthur' on it.

Kate's image is on a screen at the back of the stage floating in the pitch black sea wearing a life jacket and off stage she starts singing 'And Dream of Sheep' , lip-synching perfectly and then it was through the rest of the songs that make up 'The Ninth Wave' with the stage full of waves made of silk, Ships Buoys, Fish People and even a representation of a rescue helicopter flying over the audience, its search beam flicking over the sea of people.

Then it was our second and scheduled interval, a chance to catch your breathe and retrieve pieces of confetti from the stage and aisles.
The second half was the performance of A Sky of Honey, from the Aerial Album, with son Bertie taking the part of the Painter and directing what happened on stage. And again it was a visual feast with an artistes wooden model controlled by a puppeteer, church bells, Blackbird's song and when we got to Aerial, a crashing crescendo with two huge trees that fell from the roof, one which impaled Kate' grand piano and then Kate herself turning into a Blackbird and briefly taking off from the stage before the lights went dark.
This resulted in a huge ovation from the audience, the noise was deafening !
The expected encore was listened to in total silence as Kate played Among Angels (From 50 Words for Snow) solo at the piano before leading audience in an ecstatic rendition of Cloudbusting !
And then it was over, a magical,emotional,crazy,dreamlike, vision of this women's work. Worth waiting 35 years for, you bet !

Somerset Levels and Local Patch

On the 30th August I managed to get out birding for the first time in months. Miriam was in hospital again and to give me a break from visiting, a friend was going to see her in the afternoon leaving me with the rest of the day to get out and then go to the hospital in the evening.
I decided to head up to the levels as two Curlew Sandpipers had been reported this week and its a bird I rarely get to see.
I arrived around 11:30 am, not too early as I'd been playing skittles the night before in the summer league at the club and got home late.
I walked out to Meare Heath and immediately saw the two Sandpipers feeding right in front of the path. As well as the Sandpipers I saw at least 4 Ruff, 2 Dunlin and 4 Great White Egrets.

Curlew Sandpiper & Ruff

Curlew Sandpiper

Great White Egrets(Back) Little Egrets(Front)

After this I walked further along the path to Noah's Lake to see the long staying Osprey. I got there just in time to see it flying around having just caught a fish and looking for somewhere to eat it.

Osprey

I only stayed around for about 2 hours as I was quite tired after my previous nights outing so headed home and got ready to go the hospital to visit Mir.

The next day I popped to my local patch as I knew some Yellow Wagtails had been seen recently and again I was lucky to see them straight away.

Bottle Fest.

On the 17th August I held the latest of my Bottled Beer Fests with a few of the usual suspects in attendance.
We had around 25 beers on offer and it was held in my garden in my own beer tent.

We eventually tried 15 beers and scored them out of 10

					Score (50)
1	Beavertown	Black Betty	Black IPA	7.2%	40
2	Brentwood Brewing Co.	Chockwork Orange	Dark Ale	6.5%	36
3	Westmalle	Trappist	Red/Brown Trappist	7.0%	34
4	Blue Moon Brew Co.	Blue Moon	Belgium White	5.4%	33
5	Ellenberg	Dark Smoky Wheat Beer	Dark Wheat Beer	6.5%	31
6	Thornbridge	Bracia	Rich Dark Ale	10.0%	30
7	Tyris	Oh Yeah	American Pale Ale	4.5%	28
7	Cerverceria Mexicana	DOA IPA	IPA	6.8%	28
7	Franziskaner	Weissbeir	Dark Yeast Beer	?	28
10	Bacchus	Kriek	Belgium Cherry Beer	5.8%	25
10	Gyle 59	Tourjours	Saison	4.0%	25
12	Gyle 59	The Favourite	Porter	6.6%	24
13	Gyle 59	Pale & Bitter	Pale Ale	5.0%	23
14	Clearwater	Devon Darter	Copper Ale	4.5%	17.5
15	St Ives	Boilers	Golden Ale	4.0%	7

The clear winner was the Beavertown Black Betty Black IPA which was a light and hoppy but jet black IPA at 7.2% and was enjoyed by all with the Brentwood Brewing Co's Chockwork Orange, a deep chocolate, malty beer in an 'old ale' classic style which has won numerous local SIBA awards in second place.

This was particularly pleasing for me as these beers were from my selections, purchased on line from www.alesbymail.co.uk

Less pleasing was the reaction to my special purchase of Thornbridge's 'Bracia' a very heavy dark ale at 10% and costing around £10 a bottle. Oh well cant win them all.